A Room Painted Blue
by Sirenidae
Summary: When Draco loses his son and Ginny loses her three children, they both will have to find comfort in each other to remind themselves what it really means to live...and to love. Draco/Ginny, doesn't match epilogue, M for mature themes, 7 years after DH
1. Chapter 1

**A new story for all you kiddies!!! Don't be fooled by my A/N's...this one's full of angst!**

**ENJOY THE ANGST!!!**

**jk rowling owns it all but the angst  
**

* * *

Debbie Rowlen was a sensible enough person. A woman who prided herself on maintaining a firm grip on her life and on the gossip that surrounded it on the seventh floor of her apartment building in the northern part of London.

Debbie was the kind of person who knew exactly what was happening in all her neighbors' lives the moment anything occurred. And she was more than happy to share this knowledge with anyone who asked, and especially with those who didn't.

For example, she knew that the lovely Irish woman in number 712, Aileen was her name, was expecting her first child, even though she hadn't a boyfriend or a clue. And Peter Collins, the man from 701 had just broken his diet _again_ when Alice from number 710 had brought him a pie.

Oh yes, Debbie Rowlen knew a lot about everybody, some things good and most bad. But when the tall blonde man whose name she didn't quite catch each time she heard it moved into number 715, the apartment at the end of the hall, Debbie found herself stumped.

It was a Sunday and she was coming back from Mass when she found the lift occupied longer than normal, which was saying something. When it finally came back down, Debbie was greeted by the sight of the handsomest man she'd ever seen.

Tall, blonde and dressed in dark colors, the man in the lift looked quite fit in Debbie's eyes, although when she looked again… She knew he was beautiful, but sadly so. A desperate quality about his person…

And then he had looked up.

Deep stormy grey eyes, almost black met her hazel ones and pierced into her soul. Suddenly and overwhelming feeling of despair settled around her, knocking the breath out from her lungs. Debbie felt wetness on her cheeks and she knew she was crying.

"I have never felt this alone before in my life," she remembered crying out to this stranger. "Why did you let me leave? Why did you have to let me go?" Debbie had no idea what she was saying, the only thing that she knew was that these things had to be said, for the pressure building around her heart was too great.

"Why?" Debbie continued to sob, clutching at the wall next to her for support. "I didn't want to leave, but I had to. I couldn't live with it…with what I'd done. Please forgive me!" Debbie reached out to the stranger whose eyes had grown bright with tears throughout her speech.

He refused to shed them, however, or offer her help. All he did was sweep out of the lift and bump past her in his hurry to get away. Debbie was left crying alone in the entrance way of her apartment building, one hand outstretched to the door that the stranger had left through, and one hand on her heart.

She had never seen the man again, only catching glimpses if she was really lucky. Glimpses of him going in his door or in the lift, but that was it, she never looked into his eyes again. And frankly, Debbie shuddered to herself, she didn't want to.

Putting the kettle on Debbie thought back to that day almost a week ago and back to those eyes. They had haunted her dreams for the past couple of days and she hadn't gotten a good night sleep yet.

In fact, Debbie had found out earlier that afternoon, no one had. It was as if the entire seventh floor was depressed. Everyone felt sluggish and that they couldn't be happy.

"No, not couldn't," Samantha, number 714, had told Debbie over tea just a few hours ago. "Just like I _shouldn't_ be, you know? Almost as if I would be breaking some _rule_ or insulting someone…" Sam had trailed off.

"Not someone," Debbie said darkly. "The man at the end of the hall. He's the cause of all this, mark my words Sam. It makes sense that you're so affected, you live closest to him."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sam had said through a sip of her tea. "I'm just going through a rough patch is all. You'll see, maybe just a holiday and I'll be back to normal."

But Debbie knew she was right. She had to be. What else could explain the strange, sad behavior of everyone living on her floor? A contagious depression? Debbie snorted as the kettle began to whistle. Not likely.

She heard a door click open and shut in the distance and knew it was him. She didn't bother to try and catch a glimpse, she knew it was pointless. Just here a week and already the new tenant was causing trouble by not allowing Debbie access to gossip about him.

Somehow, Debbie promised herself, pouring the hot water, she would get to the bottom of this. Now if only she wasn't so bloody _sad _all the time…

* * *

"Oh! I am so sorry!" A tearful voice floated through Draco Malfoy's thoughts as he sat alone at a table in a muggle café.

Rousing his consciousness from the dregs of his mind, Draco struggled to focus on the person in front of him: the one who had spoken. It was a woman standing before him, a plump middle-aged muggle who had just spilt a good amount of the tea she was supposed to be delivering to him.

"'s all right," Draco slurred, his mind still fuzzy with his own thoughts. He began to help mop up the mess with his cloth napkin. "Not a problem." His voice sounded syrupy to his ears, like it was weighed down.

"Oh, you're a dear," the woman said, tears still staining the corners of her words. Draco looked up, finally aware of the sad sounds dogging the waitress's voice.

"Is something the matter?" he asked, polite as ever. His mother had trained him well.

The woman's eyes filled up even more, and threatened to spill over. But she flapped her hands at him. "No, no, I'm sorry for ruining your tea. I'll bring you a fresh cup on the house." She scurried away, wiping her eyes.

Draco stared after her and realized that he wasn't the only one staring. Most of the people in the café were either looking at him or the waitress in typical bystander curiosity that Draco found so tiring. _Didn't they have their own lives to worry about?_

His fresh cup of tea arrived shortly thereafter, delivered by the same waitress who burst into fresh tears after setting the cup and saucer down carefully.

Now people were really staring.

Draco decided it wasn't worth it. After taking a sip he paid and left the shop, now moving swiftly, no longer bogged down by the weight of his internal musings.

That was the third time today he had made someone cry, and it wasn't helping his efforts at trying to blend in with the muggle community around him. Draco ran a hand through his growing blonde hair, already longer than the proper length expected of a Malfoy male, but he didn't care. In fact, he found that he cared about little these days…

Turning a corner he crossed the street, expertly avoiding those horrendous muggle contraptions called 'cars'. _Bloody awful_, Draco shuddered when he was safely on the other side of the street.

Avoiding a puddle, Draco soon found himself at the bottom step to the entrance leading up to his apartment. Fishing for his keys in his pocket he unlocked the door and let himself into the entryway.

He checked his muggle post box and pressed the button for the lift. Waiting for the creaky thing to descend, Draco flipped through his mail. It was mostly junk, but he pretended to look interested, like a proper muggle, just in case any of the other tenants in his apartment building happened to see him.

The lift took its damn time and Draco was fidgeting. He could see where the light had stopped on the fifth floor, and it seemed to hover there, teasing him. A round glow of light reminding him of a halo on muggle painting of these things called 'angels'.

A jangling of keys broke his reverie and Draco jumped. Another tenant was coming into the building. Draco swore under his breath. The lift was just at the second floor. Groaning, Draco wished he still kept his wand on him at all times, not locked in a box at the foot of his bed.

The door to the building swung open the same time as the lift's doors slid open and Draco stepped hurriedly into them, hoping that the person in the hallway wouldn't want a ride up right away.

"Hold the door!"

So much for that thought.

Draco slammed an annoyed hand on the lift gate to keep it from shutting as a man Draco recognized from down his hall stepped in next to him. Keeping his shoulders hunched, Draco grunted a hello and braced himself for a very long ride.

As soon as the lift door was closed and secure Draco knew it would happen. It was too enclosed of a space for it not to.

The man next to Draco sniffed deeply, a watery sound catching in the back of his throat. Draco closed his eyes, hoping to Merlin for strength, and then turned to look at the man.

Jeremy? Jensen? Whatever his name was trying unsuccessfully to hold back tears. When the man caught Draco looking at him he sniffed again and started to apologize. "I am so sorry, mate. Dunno what's come over me…" All of a sudden, the man burst into deep, racking sobs.

"It's not fair!" He cried. "It's not _bloody _fair! They didn't have to do that! No, they didn't." Loud cries exploded from the man's heaving chest, giving the outward impression that his heart was breaking.

"Why?" The man sobbed. "Why did they just ignore him like that? They didn't do anything! Nothing for the one person I loved! WHY?" He slumped to his knees, his nose and eyes running freely with liquid.

Draco couldn't watch anymore. He turned away in order to keep his own tears at bay. The twisting of his heart at each of the man's sobs wasn't helping anything. He hoped that this would be over soon.

But the man kept going. Shuffling on his knees closer to Draco, the man grabbed fistfuls of Draco's long coat, pulling on them until Draco was forced to turn his head and look down into the tear filled eyes.

"You didn't do anything," the man whispered hoarsely. "You just let it happen."

Draco's hands curled around the lift's gated door as if he too was trying not to fall to his knees.

"Why didn't you do anything? You just stood there, how could you? HOW COULD YOU!"

The lift finally stopped at the seventh floor, the doors squeaking open and pinching Draco's fingers. Swearing at the pain, Draco shook off his personal leech and exited the tiny space, grateful for the escape.

As Draco strode quickly away from the lift he heard the man sniffle, getting himself under control. Looking back Draco saw him crawl out of the lift, stand up and dust himself off.

Draco stopped at his door at the end of the hallway and fumbled for his keys. As he inserted the right one into the lock, Draco heard the man say; "Blimey, I dunno what came over me."

Draco quickly went inside and locked the many locks behind him before sagging against the door, allowing his knees to bend and his body to slide gently to the ground.

His head fell forward into his waiting hands and for the first time in a week, Draco began to cry softly with no other comfort than his own skin against his face.

Why was this happening to him? He had read about Projection in Applied Theory of Magic seminar at the Ministry some years ago, but had never actually believed in it. Now, however, Draco had his doubts.

It had been only a week. Just a week in this shitty apartment complex and already he could feel it. The sadness, _his _sadness, had descended upon the seventh floor like a sticky fog; coating everything it touched, leaving a heartbreaking residue behind.

And that man in the lift… Merlin, he hadn't seen anyone that bad yet.

_It must have been the proximity,_ Draco thought, removing his head from his hands. At first he had thought it was skin contact that did it, after seeing what had happened to that old man he had bumped into in the park and helped steady him with his hands. The damn geezer had started bawling right then, drawing suspicious looks and funny questions from the passing muggles.

But that couldn't have been it, not just skin contact, Draco remembered thinking. He had come to the conclusion that it had to do with eye contact. Draco thought back to that nosy woman he had seen on his first day in lift. She had started yelling out his own thoughts back at him in a most disturbing way.

But now, with the whole hall being depressed… Draco knew it was not limited to touching or sight.

Standing up, Draco rubbed his eyes clear of any water and crossed his tiny shit apartment to his bed. Lying down on it Draco was glad for the darkness of his tiny room. He always left the shades shut, it made it easier for him to lose time whenever he was in his apartment. And he wanted to lose time, he wanted to just lie there in the dark and forget everything because living in the real world was just too painful to bear.

Draco grabbed a pillow from beside his head and put it over his face, pressing down upon it until it was hard to draw breath.

_This is what it feels like…to slip away forever._ The man thought, pressing harder. _I want that feeling._

Finally, lungs screaming for air, Draco relented and removed the pillow. Turning on his side, the man gasped, drawing a ragged breath but refusing to cry.

_I can't even kill myself. _He thought bitterly, his throat clenching until it hurt with unshed tears. _I can't even die to be with him. My own son…_

_

* * *

  
_

Ginny felt something move in her lower belly and she froze. Alone in her kitchen, the red-head gripped the counter furiously, like she had to hold on to it for dear life.

"Oh shit," the woman said and cautiously placed a hand on the underside of her slightly swollen stomach.

It was happening again, she knew it was. And this time it was going to be even worse than the last.

Her womb stirred again, sending a shock wave through her body, right up her spine and ending at the base of her skull, sending pricks of tears to her eyes. "Harry?" she called out, even though she knew he wasn't there. "Harry I need your help!"

The woman waddled to the bathroom, clenching her insides together, trying to hold it in for just a few more moments…

Warmth slid down her legs and Ginny looked down at a steadily growing puddle of deep red blood. "No," she whimpered. "Not again."

A spasm of pain rocked the woman next, driving her to hold on the door frame of the bathroom. She cried out as she took the last few steps to the tub and sank into the dry basin. Bending her knees Ginny moved her legs into the birthing position and waited for the worst.

Searing pain, far greater than before, slammed into Ginny and she gasped her eyes seeing nothing of the white ceiling above her. Her hands clenched at the sides of the tub and flexed with each shock wave of pain. The white-hot sensation spiraled within her, reaching its peak and forcing Ginny to push with all her might.

She felt a rush of warmth again, but this time it had substance; bulk. Already crying hard, Ginny looked down between her legs knowing what she would see.

In a pool of birth liquid and blood floated a tiny fetus: Her baby. Sobbing, Ginny slowly reached out and picked it up. Almost fully formed Ginny could see it was a girl, and unlike like the last two times this would have been her first. No words escaped her lips, only cries. Desperate wails of a mother's loss that caused the sun to hide behind a passing cloud.

Still attached to the umbilical cord the baby curled easily in Ginny's arms and she cradled her, gently rocking and wiping away blood and membrane from the tiny face. The failed mother began to croon a tear-streaked lullaby, one that she remembered from her childhood, memories that seemed so far away.

Ginny didn't hear the opening and shutting of the door to the house, she was too focused on trying to count the number of eyelashes her baby had. She didn't even jump when Harry yelled her name, clearly seeing the trail of blood on the floor.

"Ginny?!" He cried, stepping into the doorway to the bathroom. Ginny looked up into her husbands socked face, one that she could barely see through the tears.

"I lost her," she held out the baby as if it were a sacrifice of proof. "I lost another one, Harry. I'm so s-sorry." Ginny burst into fresh wails, keening her loss to the heavens.

Harry rushed over to her, dropping to his knees and hugging his blood soaked wife and child without hesitation. "Don't apologize, Ginny. I love you and we'll try again."

Ginny pulled away, furious behind her mask of tears. "This is the third time this has happened, Harry. Don't you think that means something?"

Harry blinked his green eyes behind his glasses. "No, Ginny, I don't. How could it? These things just happen. They-"

"They do not _just happen_," Ginny growled, wrenching the baby away from her husband and clutching it close to her breast where it should be suckling. "Why would you say that? Clearly there's a reason." Ginny paused and looked down at her dead daughter. "There has to be," she whispered gently.

She bent her head and gently kissed the forehead of her stillborn, coating her mouth in bloody lipstick.

She saw Harry grimace out of the corner of her eye. "Honey, don't do that, you could catch something. Who knows how it-"

"She," Ginny snarled, interrupting him again.

"What?"

"It's a she. It's a girl, can't you see?" Ginny didn't even bother to glare at the man she had pledged to love for a lifetime. That love paled in comparison to the love she had just lost, the one still cradled in her arms.

Harry sighed and stood up. "I'm going to Patronus a healer to come over here and get this cleaned up. I love you, Ginny." Harry bent to kiss her on the top of her head and it was all Ginny could do at the moment to not shudder. His sympathy meant nothing. The most famous wizard in world and he couldn't save her baby. Babies. This one, this tiny thing in her arms that should be alive and crying made three.

"Don't bother with the Patronus, _dear,_" Ginny said quietly, making sure Harry couldn't hear. "I'll apparate there myself." Gathering her strength, Ginny stood up in the tub and tried to take a step out. Slipping on the blood Ginny realized she was falling, a sensation that puzzled her.

_Why am I falling when I need to be walking forward?_ I just didn't make sense. But she cradled her little girl to protect her from the impact and instead Ginny hit her head on the soap alcove and smacked her spine roughly against the lip of the tub. The crashing sound of her body against the porcelain was surprisingly loud in Ginny's ears, it sounded like the entire ocean was invading her mind.

"Ginny!" Harry yelled for the second time that day, but Ginny ignored it, slipping into blackness.

The last thing she saw was her baby, her beautiful baby girl…

* * *

There was a gentle beeping somewhere in the back of Ginny's thoughts, a sound that pressed on her mind to the point where she had to let it lead her back to consciousness. Her eyes opened and she looked down, expecting to be greeted with the sight of her baby girl.

Instead she saw Harry: A concerned looking Harry holding her hand, but Harry none the less. She turned her head away from him and tried to jerk her hand out of his grasp but found she could only accomplish the first; the rest of her body was too weak.

"Oh Ginny, I am so glad you are awake, you could have been seriously hurt, and I was so worried…" Ginny let her husband continue speaking without hearing a word. All she could think of was how empty her body felt without the growing child within it.

"Where's my daughter?" Ginny asked Harry ferociously.

Harry frowned. "S-she's…dead, Ginny. You know that."

Ginny turned her head and let her eyes go unfocused with tears. They still had no right to take her away from her mother. No right at all… She turned back to her husband.

"Twice," Ginny startled Harry by spitting out.

He blinked. "No, honey, it was the third time. I'm so sorry-"

"Twice," Ginny stated again. "You've cheated death twice, are supposedly the greatest wizard in the world and you haven't figured out a spell to cheat death."

Harry choked back a laugh, but Ginny could still hear it. "Is that what this is about? Ginny, honey, _no one_ can cheat death. You know that. Even Dumbledore-"

"I don't care," she said mechanically. "You should have figured it out."

Harry looked at her oddly. "Ginny, what's gotten into you?"

"What do you think?" shouted Ginny, suddenly bursting out. "I just lost a child, Harry. A _child, _our little girl. This is the third time this has happened and you're acting like it's no big deal. Well it is a big deal and _I'm _the only one that has to deal with it. You just get to go off and be innocent and removed from all of this at your work…"

"You think this doesn't _affect _me?" Harry tried not to roar, the strain affecting the redness in his cheeks.

Ginny finally wrenched her hand back from Harry and crossed her arms

Harry gave a sigh that annoyed Ginny further; it was like he knew that she was going to be like this. "Listen, Gin, you sustained a mild concussion and you bruised your back pretty badly. Not to mention all the blood loss. So why don't you just rest, hmm?"

Ginny wasn't listening anymore. She just put her hand on her stomach, the one that wasn't attached to the beeping heart monitor and wished fiercely that her daughter was still inside her.


	2. Chapter 2

**You're welcome Shealily**

**JK Rowling owns it all (boo)  
**

* * *

There was a gentle beeping somewhere in the back of Ginny's thoughts, a sound that pressed on her mind to the point where she had to let it lead her back to consciousness. Her eyes opened and she looked down, expecting to be greeted with the sight of her baby girl.

Instead she saw Harry: A concerned looking Harry holding her hand, but Harry none the less. She turned her head away from him and tried to jerk her hand out of his grasp but found she could only accomplish the first; the rest of her body was too weak.

"Oh Ginny, I am so glad you are awake, you could have been seriously hurt, and I was so worried…" Ginny let her husband continue speaking without hearing a word. All she could think of was how empty her body felt without the growing child within it.

"Where's my daughter?" Ginny asked Harry ferociously.

Harry frowned. "S-she's…dead, Ginny. You know that."

Ginny turned her head and let her eyes go unfocused with tears. They still had no right to take her away from her mother. No right at all… She turned back to her husband.

"Twice," Ginny startled Harry by spitting out.

He blinked. "No, honey, it was the third time. I'm so sorry-"

"Twice," Ginny stated again. "You've cheated death twice, are supposedly the greatest wizard in the world and you haven't figured out a spell to cheat death."

Harry choked back a laugh, but Ginny could still hear it. "Is that what this is about? Ginny, honey, _no one_ can cheat death. You know that. Even Dumbledore-"

"I don't care," she said mechanically. "You should have figured it out."

Harry looked at her oddly. "Ginny, what's gotten into you?"

"What do you think?" shouted Ginny, suddenly bursting out. "I just lost a child, Harry. A _child, _our little girl. This is the third time this has happened and you're acting like it's no big deal. Well it is a big deal and _I'm _the only one that has to deal with it. You just get to go off and be innocent and removed from all of this at your work…"

"You think this doesn't _affect _me?" Harry tried not to roar, the strain affecting the redness in his cheeks.

Ginny finally wrenched her hand back from Harry and crossed her arms

Harry gave a sigh that annoyed Ginny further; it was like he knew that she was going to be like this. "Listen, Gin, you sustained a mild concussion and you bruised your back pretty badly. Not to mention all the blood loss. So why don't you just rest, hmm?"

Ginny wasn't listening anymore. She just put her hand on her stomach, the one that wasn't attached to the beeping heart monitor and wished fiercely that her daughter was still inside her.

* * *

It was the beeping that roused her again. The noise seemed to have burrowed itself in her mind and wouldn't let go until she was fully awake again. Opening her eyes, slowly blinking away the fog of sleep, Ginny saw that the incessant noise hadn't bothered Harry who was asleep in the corner of the room.

Ginny's anger towards him was not softened by the innocent appearance of his dreaming state and her hard feelings boiled low in the pit of her stomach.

_He could have saved her, _she thought glaring at the man. _He could have saved them all._

Feeling well enough to sit up, Ginny wanted to try getting out of bed after she had proper herself upright on the hospital bed's pillows. Grimacing, Ginny noticed a dull throbbing between her legs and although she expected it, but knowing why the pain was present didn't provide much comfort.

Moving slowly, quietly so Harry wouldn't hear, Ginny slid her legs to the side of the bed and her bare feet touched the cold floor making her wince. Something tugged at her arm, the Heart Charm was still attached to her finger on her left hand and wasn't letting go.

"Damn it," Ginny muttered under her breath, and she looked around for her wand. When she discovered that it wasn't there she looked around frantically and saw Harry's; it was sticking out of his coat pocket.

"Damn it," Ginny said again. Focusing on standing up, she planted her feet and pulled herself upright using the railings on her hospital bed. Her legs were steadier than she thought and she triumphantly moved across the floor without falling as she had expected.

Her left arm was out behind her, still connected to the charm but she stretched her entire body until her fingertips brushed the handle of Harry's wand. "You do know I'm an Auror don't you?" Harry's voice startled Ginny into falling down back near her bed.

"Merlin, Harry, do you want to give me a heart attack?" Ginny cried, rubbing her chest.

Harry stood up, his gaze cool upon his wife. Ignoring her question, he told her that he was leaving, to go back to their house and straighten it up and maybe bring back some clothes for her. "There's a specialist coming to see you, in about ten minutes. All the way from Brazil, she's supposed to be very good." His voice, so cool before softened a bit and he walked forward and helped her back on her feet and then into her bed.

"Ginny, I've been doing a lot of research. I think she can help us," he said, green eyes looking earnestly into Ginny's. She felt guilty. Trying to escape? What was she thinking?

Harry kissed her forehead. "I want a child as much as you do, Pea." Harry used his pet name for her and Ginny gave a small smile. "I know we can get through this, together." He left, the ghost of his kiss prickling on Ginny's hairline.

She sat there for a few long moments, her fingers gently on the spot where his lips had been, her eyes watching the sunlight streaming in from the windows inch slowly across the floor.

"Hello," an accented voice came from the doorway, so soft and pleasant that it didn't startle Ginny at all. "I am Healer Obra, here to see…you I presume." Ginny nodded, shifting her body to the middle of the bed. "You're husband contacted me two weeks ago…"

Ginny let the healer ramble, the red-head was busy surveying her. Like every woman she met, Ginny didn't appraise the witch's looks, clothes or her manner like other females would. Instead, Ginny let her eyes wander to Obra's lower belly, to check for swelling. There was a small mound there that Ginny hoped was fat.

"Yes," said Healer Obra, noticing Ginny's gaze. "I am expecting." Ginny's heart stabbed with pain.

"Good for you," she said.

Silence.

Then Healer Obra moved to the foot of Ginny's bed. "If it's all right with you," the woman said in her soft, musical voice. "I would like to conduct a series of tests on you." Ginny nodded but was interrupted. "But first, I was hoping to start with an interview."

Ginny looked back to the creeping sunlight. "Yes, of course. Please sit."

Healer Obra sat. "Thank you. How old are you, Ginny?" The woman took out a quill, parchment and clipboard.

"Twenty six," Ginny said, without emotion.

"Height?"

"5'9''."

"Weight?"

"130."

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Six, er, five. I had six. Six brothers."

"Did your mother have any trouble in childbirth?"

"No."

"Her mother?"

"I don't think so."

"How about anyone on your father's side?"

"Not that I know of. There is some inbreeding though, I mean, purebloods and all."

"And when did you first conceive?"

"When I was twenty four."

"Was your husband your first sexual partner?"

"…No."

"How many sexual partners did you have before him?"

"One."

"Did you conceive with him?"

"Dean? No."

"Did you partake in sexual intercourse with your husband before you conceived?"

"Yes."

"What do you attribute your first miscarriage to?"

"Quidditch injury," Ginny gritted her teeth. She remembered that day clearly.

It was a match against the Westgate Winged Horses and Ginny was leading Chaser. She had just gotten promoted to the starting position at the last practice and she was itching to prove herself. Only five months pregnant she had barely started to show and wanted to quash the rumors that she wasn't up to the task while there was a child within her.

The bitch from the Horses had the Quaffle and was flying up the pitch her eyes fixed on the left goal post. She hadn't seen Ginny flying beneath her, waiting for the right time to strike. Ginny remembered smiling grimly as she urged her Firebolt upward, snaked a hand through the other player's grasp and yanked the Quaffle free.

Ginny sighed with remembered glory when she had scored a goal off of that steal. The Harpies had gone on to win the match and it would have been perfect if the witch Ginny had taken the Quaffle from hadn't rammed into her at the end of the game.

She came out of no where, surprising even the referee. Ginny felt the breath leave her lungs as she gasped, trying to bring it back. The force of the two bodies colliding pushed Ginny off her broom. She wished now that she hadn't tried to grab onto her Firebolt, she should have just fallen.

But she had grabbed it and while she was flipping through the air, she had tried to climb back on but succeeded in only turning herself around so she was straddling the wrong end.

As the ground rushed up, Ginny knew what was going to happen. The foot harness was twisted around between her legs and on impact…

"It impaled me," Ginny whispered, her voice cracking.

"I see," said the healer. Then, noticing the tears hidden in Ginny's eyes she said; "Would you like to take a short break?"

Ginny wiped at her eyes and shook her head. "No, better to get it all over with in one go, eh?"

Healer Obra smiled, although it held an air of quiet understanding. "And the second?"

"The second?" Ginny took a shaky breath. "The second was about six months after the accident. The Healers at St. Mungo's said it was alright for us to try again, they said that everything had healed properly. I guess they were wrong."

"Six months after?" The healer repeated, her quill paused above the paper.

"Six months," Ginny confirmed.

"And how far along were you when this happened?"

"Same as the last, five months."

"And recently?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes in thought. "Five months again. To the day. Does that mean something?"

The healer shook her head slowly. "I have no idea. Not yet anyway."

Ginny slumped back into the pillows. "Alright."

"And when did you conceive this past time?"

Ginny smiled. "It was only a month after, because the healers said that there was no trauma to my body, that we could go a head a try again. Harry bought these ridiculous conceiving candles from this shop. He got ripped off but he seemed happy…" Ginny trialed off into her memory.

Healer Obra smiled with her, but her patient didn't notice. "That's it for the interview, Ginevra, now with your permission, I can begin the tests."

The tests were invasive, but Ginny was assured that they were necessary. Healer Obra prodded Ginny's stomach and lower belly with her cool fingers and then sat down at the foot of the bed and proceeded to put on gloves.

"I'm going to need you to place your feet in these stirrups," the healer flicked her wand and a pair of white, sterile straps appeared out of the air. Ginny obliged, preparing for the embarrassment of displaying her body to another human.

"I'm just going to enter you in order to discern if there is any physical damage that I can see. After, I will use my wand to further examine any residual magic, if there is any in the area."

Ginny nodded, calmed against her will by the healer's explanation of what was to come. She _had _done this before, after the first two…incidents, and in other appointments to find out what was…wrong.

The red-head felt a cold pressure between her legs and knew the healer was sliding in the mechanism for spreading her to make it easier to see.

"Hmm, yes, I can see the scars from not only this miscarriage but also where the broomstick's foot hold entered you. But these physical signs should not be inhibiting you from carrying a fetus full to term."

The healer looked up and pulled her wand out of her long white coat breast pocket. "I'm going to spell you to check if there is anything magical preventing you from having a complete pregnancy."

Ginny nodded, feeling the warmth of magic now between her legs. She waited for the woman to say something. Lying there on the hospital bed, Ginny was suddenly overwhelmed with loneliness.

_I hate him, I _hate _him for what he didn't do to save my children, but I want him here. With me, I want him here._ Ginny turned her head towards the door of her room, willing it to open to her husband's understanding green eyes and warm smile.

To Ginny's astonishment she heard a crack outside the door and when it opened, it revealed Harry.

"Ginny, what's wrong?" Harry strode into the room and went right to Ginny's bedside. "I felt you call me, are you alright?"

Ginny relaxed. He was here and she wasn't alone anymore. "How did you know I wanted you here?" Ginny asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

Harry looked sheepish.

"Harry?" she said again.

"It's nothing; really, it's just a small Trace. Harmless."

"You put a _Trace_ on me?" Ginny was incredulous, but she tried not to move out of deference to the healer. "It must be pretty strong if it's able to read my wants."

He shuffled in place. "It is. It's kind of an Auror's Trace," he mumbled.

"And Auror's Trace?" Ginny almost shrieked. "And _Auror's Trace!_ What am I, an escaped fugitive?"

"No, no, of course not, Honey, you know that."

Ginny ground her teeth. "Obviously I know I'm not a fugitive you idiot. But why did you feel the need to place a Trace on me?"

"Pea, can we discuss this some other time?" Harry whispered with a glance at the healer.

"No time like the present," Ginny said, over sweetly.

The healer in question gasped at that moment and Ginny and Harry turned to look at her. Glancing up she saw the two looking down at her and went silent. Ginny realized that she could no longer feel the woman's instrument inside of her body. "Healer Obra?" Ginny lifted her head to peer down at the witch. "Is everything okay?"

She felt Harry's hand find and squeeze hers. "Healer Obra," he said in a strong voice. "Please tell us what you see."

The Brazilian healer looked up with wide eyes. "N-nothing," she stammered. "Aside from the scar tissue, there is simply nothing I could find that would prevent you from having a c-child."

Harry and Ginny watched, astonished as the healer stood up, gathered up her things and made for the door. "I will send you the bill in a few days time," she said as she left the room.

"Wait a minute," Harry called starting after her, but they heard the crack of disapperation and he stopped pursuit. "Good God," Harry said, regressing back to his muggle phrases he used before his Hogwarts days. "What was that all about?" He ran a hand through his black hair.

Ginny calculated the situation, her hand cooling from the sticky effects of Harry's holding of it. "I have no idea."

* * *

**You know who I hate? Harry.**

**And sorry this chapter was all Ginny and no Draco but I'm writing the thrid one as I speak...or type...okay so I'm not really writing it at this very moment but I will!!!  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well it is kind of a short chapter but I think it's worth it. Lol**

**ENJOY**

**(p.s. I'm going on vacation tomorrow so I won't be able to update for a while but I promise when I do, on Tuesday, they all will be nice fat chapters)**

**jk rowling owns it all  
**

* * *

Draco was still awake.

At two thirty in the morning, he had been up all night watching the bright muggle invention that he learned was called a 'telly' or 'television' from his next door neighbor who had loaned it to him after finding out he didn't have one.

"No, please, I wouldn't know what to do with it. It's fine that I don't have one," Draco had said his hands held up in protest.

The man from 707 looked shocked. "Don' have a telly _an' _you don' know how ta use one? Jayzus man, where have ye been for the past two decades?"

Draco didn't know what Jayzus was but had finally nodded. "Alright, bring it in."

"Yeah," the man had said happily with the first smile Draco had seen in a long while. But then again, his Projection was never bad in the mornings. The man from room 707, or Brian as he told Draco jovially as he was setting up the box, was rather a tiny man but he somehow managed to wrestle the huge screen into Draco's tiny flat and set it up in the corner across from the bed.

"There ye go," Brian said happily, straightening up and holding a small flat black rectangle. "Do ye know what a wand is?"

Draco cocked his head to the side. "A wand?" he asked, scoffing.

Brian looked embarrassed. "Well, not a wand exactly, no, but that's what it's called sometimes, ah never mind. This is a remote an' it works the telly." The man hit at large button at the top of the device and the box made a sound.

Draco tried not to jump back when a giant man's face appeared on the screen. "Well don't keep him waiting," the man said to a woman with dark hair. Draco was fascinated; it was just like a magical photograph, but with sound. And apparently a story.

"Ah!" said Brain, clapping Draco on the back. "My daughter's favorite show. I tink this is the first one of the series too, what luck for ye, eh?"

Draco nodded, unsure of what do to. Brian explained the rest of the buttons to him and had left him to enjoy the program in peace, but, Draco thought to himself lying on the bed unable to sleep at two thirty in the morning, he created a monster.

Apparently he was watching something called a 'marathon' of something called 'Torchwood'. What the show had to do with burnt wood Draco had yet to find out, but he liked it anyway as evidenced by his attention to the screen.

He hadn't wanted to get obsessed with the show, but he just hadn't been able to go to sleep so he decided to watch it regardless of the consequences.

At first he had felt dirty, watching muggle television, but after one episode with cannibals Draco admitted to himself that watching it was fun. The first fun he'd had in a while, actually. But he still found he couldn't sleep and wasn't the least bit tired, and if that had anything to do with the telly, he didn't really care.

His arms were bent behind his head and his hands supported his neck as he peered down the length of the room to better see the box. It was the last episode of the first season apparently, whatever that meant, and Draco knew his mouth hung slightly open.

At three o'clock in the morning, the show ended and the cycle began again, starting with the first episode Draco had started with the previous day. Pissed that it was over and annoyed that he didn't know where Captain Jack was, Draco stood up and turned off the set using the 'remote' that Brian had given him.

"Wand," Draco scoffed quietly, looking at the flimsy plastic thing he held in his hands. It wasn't even close to a wand but it felt good in his hands. "Wand," he said again, this time without scornful humor.

He missed the feeling of his wand in his hand. Ever since…it hadn't even been that long since he used it, only about a week. But, locking in hi trunk at the foot of his bed, Draco felt disconnected from it, like part of him was missing. It was a smaller part than what was missing from his heart, but it still made him feel off.

The twenty five year old blonde threw the remote down and crossed over to the open window. He sighed and placed a hand high on the window sill and leaned against his arm letting the cool night air wrap around his naked torso. Looking out into the purple night Draco's eyes lingered on the twinkling lights in the distance on the horizon.

With each wink of the cities lights Draco was reminded of the lights in his son's eyes, his bright blue eyes. When he saw them last, they were still baby blue from the womb, they hadn't changed yet and Draco had hoped they never would.

The first time Draco had looked in those eyes, it when they opened slowly, cautiously, as if testing out the new world outside the womb before arriving at a conclusion. Draco had smiled, watching his son look at him and he felt his heart pound. With those bright blue eyes with something that sparkled behind them.

Two lights in the distance blinked twice and then went out. Just like that time... Draco's hand slipped on the windowsill and he banged his head. That's what he attributed the tears to; just to the pain of a head ache.

* * *

St. Mungo's decided to let Ginny go the next day after a note from Healer Obra. Harry helped her back into their house, one step at a time.

"Here you are, honey," Harry said gently helping her onto the couch. Kissing her on the forehead, he spoke again. "I have to go to work, Pea, just to do some papers, I'll be back early though so don't worry."

Ginny smiled without letting the gesture reach her eyes.

"Will you be okay?" Harry asked, placing her bag down near the couch, where she could reach it.

Ginny tried not to roll her eyes. "I'm not _that_ delicate, Harry," she said, leaning back on the couch.

"Well yes, but I-"

"I'll be fine," Ginny interrupted. "Don't worry, just go to work." _And do nothing, _she added bitterly to herself.

Harry smiled. "Alright, I'll be back home to make you lunch." He left.

The ticking of the clock wasn't in time with the rhythm of Ginny's heart and it bothered her. Thinking of only what Healer Obra hadn't said, the red-head just got madder and madder.

Finally, needing something to distract herself, she flung a hand in her overnight back and rummaged around for a book. What she came up with was entirely different; her file from the hospital. Complete with Healer Obra's hotel information.

Ginny sat up and smirked.

* * *

Ginny rammed on the door, making it shake on its hangers. "Obra!" Ginny shouted, not bothering to use the respectful prefix to the woman's name. "Open your door!" Ginny had expected to have to bang on the door for a long time, so she was shocked when the healer opened the door after the second round of hammering.

"Yes, Ginevra, I thought you'd be by," the witch said in her comforting voice, although her gaze was troubled. "Please, come in." Ginny followed the woman inside her hotel room to the living space where she sat down on the edge of her chair, ready to jump up again.

"Tea? Coffee?" The healer offered politely.

Ginny ignored her. "Obra I want you to tell me what you found out in the hospital and wouldn't say."

The woman sighed and sunk down into a chair opposite Ginny's. "I want to apologize for my behavior in the hospital, but with you and your husband together…" she trailed off.

"What?" Ginny said, startled. "What does Harry have to do with this? I'm the one who miscarried."

Healer Obra shook her head. "It was just because he was in the room."

"That's why you couldn't say anything?" Ginny was doubtful. "Well he's not here now, so go ahead."

Suddenly the witch rose from her chair and crossed the room stopping in front of Ginny and kneeling to the ground. Placing her hands on Ginny's knees the healer looked up into her eyes. "Please, Ginevra, please whatever you do with this information, do not blame your husband or yourself. You are much too good of people to be burdened by this."

Ginny's eyes were wide in shock.

"Please!" The woman pleaded again. "You do not want to have this on your shoulders, I promise you that."

Ginny looked down at the witch and saw that she was telling the truth. She set her jaw. "I don't care. I command you to tell me or my husband will have your license."

Healer Obra's shoulders sank. "Fine, you understand the consequence of hearing this don't you?"

Ginny nodded.

The Brazilian woman closed her dark eyes and breathed deeply, as if for strength. "Very well," Her eyes fluttered open. "Have you ever considered that your husband is not your soul mate?"

* * *

**No shit Sherlock, Harry blows**


	4. Chapter 4

**ANother UPdate! I'm so proud of myself.**

**jk rowling owns it all**

* * *

Ginny's heart skipped a beat. "I'm sorry; I must have heard you wrong. What did you say?" She looked down at the healer that was kneeling before her and she felt an odd fluttering in her stomach.

"That you and your husband are not meant for each other?" The healer hadn't blinked yet out of seriousness, but it was creeping Ginny out. When the red-head kept quiet, Obra spoke again this time in pleading tones, as if she was desperate to make Ginny understand. "It is a deep magic, an old magic, one that has not been seen in thousands of years."

Ginny shifted, uncomfortable in her seat. She didn't want to be hearing this, she didn't want to hear that Harry wasn't the one for her, especially not after she had been thinking that herself just a few days ago… Even before the mis—the accident.

"Even in primitive societies it is very rare but I have been doing research in magical native communities in the jungles of South America and there was one case that mimics your own…"

Ginny snorted, holding onto this anchor. "One case? Oh alright let's base everything off of that _one_ case-"

Healer Obra ignored her. "One case in millions, I know, but it was an arranged marriage, something for the benefit of the tribe, between a man and a woman who were not in love with each other. They pretended to be for both the sake of their happiness and the tribe's but when it was time for them to conceive, the woman always lost her child.

"I was passing through the neighboring village after the woman's fourth miscarriage when the man's brother came into the village to trade. When he heard what I did for a living he begged me to look at his brother's wife. I conducted the same examination on the woman that I did on you and came up with the same results."

Ginny removed the healer's hands from her knees. "And what did you see? You never told us." Still not believing, Ginny crossed her arms in front of her chest, subconsciously protecting herself from Obra's story.

"When the woman's husband touched her, just as your husband held your hand in the hospital, her womb, and yours, they…_died._"

Against her will, Ginny leaned forward slightly. Could this be the answer she and Harry were looking for? This could be the end of all the pain… Ginny licked her lips. "What do you mean, they 'died'?"

Healer Obra's eyes were wide with her memories and the story. "I mean exactly that. When her husband touched her shoulder, the womb looked as if it had aged well beyond the time women can carry a child, so you can only imagine what it would be like if and actual fetus tried to thrive in that environment. It is no wonder that you both miscarried."

Ginny tried to suppress the shiver she felt at the lack of emotion in Obra's voice. Ginny remembered she was a healer first and probably found this all fascinating. Another shiver.

"This hasn't happened to my friends or anyone else I've heard of." Ginny asked.

The healer wrung her hands. "I don't know about that, it is a very rare occurrence. Besides the two cases I've seen with my own eyes, I would never have believed the legends."

Ginny's head jerked. "What legends?"

Obra took a deep breath and sighed. She let her head fall forward, allowing her long black hair to curtain around her face. She rubbed her palms together making a shushing noise with the friction of her skin. She spoke, in a low voice.

"I've heard stories, especially among the Native peoples of North America, but it was the same in jungles, although I had to search a long time for the woman who knew of the tale. It is said that long ago when people were scarce and Nature was still queen of the land, human females with the magical spark within them only could conceive with their true love.

"Back then, when the sun and the moon still spoke to the earth, it was easy to find your soul mate, for the stars guided you to the other regardless of the distance between. Some say this was to ensure men and women stayed true to one another, but others think it was to make the children stronger, to better the magical race.

"Most don't know why it was so, and no one has come up with a better theory. I don't think we'll ever know. However, as the number of humans grew and evolved so did the magic, and some things were forgotten. But ever so often, the old magic is remembered and things happen again as they once were thousands of years ago." The healer finished.

Ginny was silent for a while, her eyes following a speck of dust in its pattern down a shaft of sunlight to the carpet. Then finally; "Why is this happening to me?"

Obra shrugged. "Perhaps you are meant for greater things, perhaps you are special, who knows? Magic is a strange and unpredictable thing, you know, one can never know what its going to do next."

"Don't lecture me about magic," Ginny snapped. "I know what it is like."

"Then you are smart enough to know that you'll never be able to have a child with your husband. I'm sorry." Obra hung her head in shame. Ginny just looked down at the woman, her brain slowing down.

_This is my ticket out,_ Ginny thought, somewhat guiltily. She had been unhappy living with Harry for about a year now and thought that everything would be made better with a child. An idea dawned on Ginny and she spoke up. "Well I can use another man's…" Ginny trailed off when she saw the healer shake her head and look up.

"No, don't you see? If you use another man's sperm, it is more than likely that he won't be your soul mate either." The woman crossed her arms and rubbed her elbows, like she was trying to keep herself together.

Ginny thought. "But," she said at last. "But I'm guessing that the chances of me finding my _exact_ soul mate are…"

"Slim," Obra interjected. "Very slim. In a world full of six billion people, I don't think you'll ever find him."

Ginny's stomach heaved, but she managed to control it. Her brain felt soft, like she was dreaming. She stood up, swaying on the spot. "You're an asshole, you know that?

Obra sat back on her heels blinking. "I just told you what you asked me to, you knew about the consequences."

"I didn't know that it would be an explanation for why I can never have children!" Ginny screamed. The red-head crossed to the door and paused with her hand on the handle. "Tell me," Ginny said in a dangerously soft voice without turning her head around. "What happened to the woman in the village?"

Obra couldn't look at the woman in the hotel room's doorway. Instead she focused on the plastic flower perpetually in bloom on the coffee table in front of her. "She died."

"How?" Ginny practically growled.

"She…killed herself." The healer jumped in surprise with the sound of the door being slammed shut.

* * *

Draco opened his door and looked out down the hallway to make sure no one was there. Cautiously stepping out of his room, the tall blonde man locked his door and walked quickly to the lift.

Once inside the tiny square contraption Draco felt safe, contained. He didn't like the open ended feeling of the hallway or, he grimaced as the lift door's opened at the bottom floor and he strode out of the building, the street.

Staying on the walk all the way to the grocery was something Draco found annoying. Normally he would have just crossed over the street in any way he pleased, using magic if necessary to ensure his safety. But without his wand he was powerless and as such he worked to follow the rules of the muggle world. This also made him blend in better, the thought, crossing a road at the right place, marked with white stripes. But it made him feel ridiculous.

Once inside the market, Draco found a basket and made for the fruit section. Today was Thursday, shopping day, and Draco felt lulled by the routine of it and quickly fell into his role as 'just another shopper'.

Today he was feeling a bit more optimistic and decided that fresh fruit would be a good alternative to the shit he normally ate these days. Draco found that these past two weeks not only did he not have an appetite, but that he had quite forgotten how to make his own food.

He had never been a good cook anyway, house elves had been the ones who had made him his meals when he was both a child and when he was at school, but when he had graduated from Hogwarts he thought it would be a good skill to learn.

Still, he wasn't very good at it.

Once his basket was almost all filled up with fruits and vegetables Draco found himself in the frozen food section, one aisle over from where he had just been. He was staring at frozen dough, packaged in tiny section for kids.

"Can I?"

His son's voice echoed in his mind and Draco smiled as he remembered when they had tried to make bread together. His son was only two but he still had wanted to help. His vocabulary wasn't even fully formed yet.

"Sure, I'm mucking it up anyway." Draco had placed his hands underneath his son's arms and he hoisted him up to sit on the counter next to the dough. Draco had laughed when he realized that the boy had only wanted to eat some of the stuff. "Don't do that, it's gross." Draco had chuckled but he didn't take the dough away.

"Is gross," the little guy had repeated, laughing not because he thought something was funny but because his dad was.

Draco was brought back to the grocery store when he felt his head get wet. Looking up Draco squinted his eyes into a stream of water, like a shower. The sprinkler system had gone off but at first he had thought that the ceiling was crying.

Grabbing his basket, Draco ran out of the store with the rest of the crowd surging toward the exit and kept walking, hugging the basket to his chest. Once away from the scene Draco looked back over his shoulder to see muggles helping each other up and wiping their eyes.

"Strangest thing," Draco heard an old man say to his wife. "It felt as though I'd lost something there for a moment. Something I could never get back."

Draco ran the rest of the way back to his apartment. Grateful that he didn't encounter anyone in the lift he raced down his hall and slammed his door shut behind him. He waited for a moment, for the pounding in his chest to subside, before he locked himself back into the room.

He shook out the rest of the water from his hair and shrugged out of his coat, hanging it to dry on the back of a chair. Draco plunked the basket of food down on the tiny kitchenette counter and he realized that he hadn't paid for any of it.

Sighing he realized that he was running low on funds anyway so he couldn't be bothered. He stared at the food for a moment, as if contemplating how to deal with it. His gaze got lost amongst the colors of the fresh produce and he wondered when his life had become black and white.

These were the first colored things he had seen in days. But the longer he stared at them, the greyer they became. _They all changed eventually_, he thought still frozen to his spot looking at the food.

A half an hour passed before Draco's arm moved slowly up to reach out and grab an apple. The fingers took ages to fold around the round fruit and lifting it up was difficult for his arm. A feeling of helpless removal from the situation came over Draco and his conscious mind sat back and watched his body put the fruits and vegetables away in the refrigerator so slowly, that it seemed to take a year.

When the job was done Draco felt exhausted. He stumbled over to his bed and lay down upon it. He knew it must be close to three in the afternoon. He always felt worse at that time.

He stared up at the ceiling and wished he couldn't hear his mind think. He was scared to be alone with his thoughts; they were always so sad, so sad and heavy, wanting to drag him down into an abyss of blue, into and expanse of water so deep he would never have to see the light of day again…

Draco sat up quickly and turned on the television. He turned up the volume and lay back down. He didn't care what was on; he just wanted the sound to drown out the thoughts that wanted to drown him.

Shivering, he tugged a sheet over his body. The noise from the box comforted him somewhat. It allowed him to lie motionless on his bed without letting his mind to wander too far. After a while, the sounds no longer sounded like they were coming from the television, they just sounded like a thousand dying cicadas crawling into his ears.

The company of the bugs lulled Draco further into his stupor and even as the light changed around him, from late afternoon to evening, he didn't move from his position on the bed.

He couldn't have even if he wanted to; his body was too heavy, too full of lead. Instead he watched the light change, he watched the sunset colors fade around him, but the beauty was lost on his soul. The colors were meaningless and ugly to him.

The last time Draco had seen a sunset was with his son. He had taken his son out of the hospital and together with his wife they walked to the top of a nearby hill to say goodbye.

A sunset was perfect for saying goodbye.

Holding the tiny body close to his chest, Draco had held up the boy to the light. "Pretty in it, daddy?" he had asked in his tiny voice.

Draco had swallowed and waited a moment before he could answer. "Yes," was all he could manage.

When it was over his son asked; "Can I see again?"

Astoria had clung to Draco's elbow to keep from falling down. "No," Draco had choked out. "I don't think you'll see another one."

His son, his little sun, had sighed and leaned back against him. "Why?"

And that was a question that Draco couldn't answer.

Crying quietly, Draco clung to the distraction of the noise and the light bouncing off the walls. When night arrived, the light from the screen began to look too much like water and Draco squeezed his eyes shut, protecting himself from the heavy pressure of the ocean deep.

* * *

**This is Draco depressed. This is me still attracted to him anyway. Sigh**


	5. Chapter 5

**I promise that I will never leave you guys for that long ever again. hopefully**

**warning: graphic scenes ahead  
**

**jk rowling owns it all  
**

* * *

Ginny was sitting at the table across from her husband a month later not eating her salad. It didn't taste like anything so she picked at it instead until Harry's hand closed over hers, the one that was holding the fork.

"Ginny, stop it," he said. Ginny just stared at his hands. She noticed, not for the first time that his hands didn't look like they belonged to a fully grown man. Instead they seemed delicate, long and feminine. Ginny grimaced and pulled her hand out from underneath his.

"I can eat my salad however I want," Ginny snapped not caring how childish she sounded.

"True," Harry replied forcing mirth into his eyes as he tried to lighten the situation.

Ginny didn't look at him. She refused. Things with Harry had been harder to fake ever since the funeral. Ginny swallowed and took a big bite of salad to distract herself.

"There you go," Harry said warmly. "That's it."

_Good Merlin, _she thought, her eyes watering from the tartness of the dressing. _Can he really not just shut up?_ At least he hadn't tried to touch her, at least not in _that _way. Not since she had collapsed at the graveyard.

Ginny couldn't help it, she remembered that day.

It hadn't been cloudy like it was always seemed to be at funerals in books but a bright blue day. "A perfect beach day," someone had muttered accidentally too loud as Ginny had passed. "I hope to make it to Brighton by this afternoon."

Ginny hadn't the strength to turn and glare at the person. She hadn't even known who he was. But as she made her way to the front of the Hole In The Ground she began to tremble as she looked into the deepness of the opening.

Harry had told her a funeral was pointless, after all they hadn't held one for the two before, but this time Ginny insisted. They would burry an empty coffin and be done with it.

What Ginny hadn't told Harry was that this wasn't just a funeral for her daughter; it was supposed to mark the end of Ginny's life with him, the end of her old life.

But even a month later she still hadn't gotten up the nerve to leave him. So here she was thinking about that day and eating a bad salad.

That day…

That 'perfect beach day' was seared into her mind.

As the service began the damn muggle school down the street had let the kids out to play just as they began to lower the coffin.

Young shouts and laughs had floated up to the gathered, a cluster of black on a slight hilltop and they all had cringed.

Ginny had lost her balance and had fallen to her knees, smudging dirt over the skin and her black skirt.

The dirt was cool, she remembered thinking. Cool and forgiving.

She wanted to be the one that would be covered by the dirt.

Harry had quickly spelled the area around the group for silence from the outside but the noises had lingered on in Ginny's mind, echoing painfully in her ears. No noises came out of her mouth, only sounds: Wordless primitive cries of grief that racked her body.

She had pushed her hands into the cool loose ground beneath her and grabbed a fist full of the brown stuff. Smearing it on her face she groaned that she wanted to be covered in it, that she _had _to be covered in it.

Harry's arms had caught her at that moment and hauled her off the ground telling her to shush and clearly mortified that his wife was losing it in front of all these people. But Ginny didn't care. She hadn't even cared when he yelled at her when they were back in their house.

She didn't care anymore.

"Do you want more water?" Harry's question at the dinner table brought Ginny's mind back to present. She shook her head and Harry got up to get himself some. "Listen, Ginny," his voice came from the kitchen. "I want you to know that I love you very much and that I'm worried about you…"

His voice lost her interest and she let her mind wander. She really had no idea why she hadn't left him yet. She had been planning to leave right after the funeral to make the symbolism clear to him but now…now she didn't care how she did it, she just wanted to leave.

But she was stuck.

For some reason Ginny found that she couldn't pluck up either the courage or the energy, she didn't know which, to leave her life behind. It had been this way for the three years that they were married.

Stuck in never ending days of Harry. Ginny smiled wryly at the dumb joke as he was still bumbling around in the kitchen and he could never guess at the contents of her thoughts. That's where she was still safe.

At first she had loved it, like everyone, including herself, had expected from the newly wed couple. But after a year it had begun to grow tiresome until one day when Ginny had been stunned to find that she had woken up beside a boy not a man.

And then they lost their first child.

That's what threw Ginny closer to the edge. How could it be that Harry Potter, greatest wizard ever known had been unable to save her child? But she had let it go because it was mostly Quidditch's fault and so they tried again.

And then they lost their second child.

Now the rumors started. How could it be that Harry Potter couldn't produce and heir? That question wormed its way into the relationship, although it affected Harry much more than in did Ginny; she was still preoccupied with why Harry hadn't saved him. Her little boy.

And then…

Ginny's repetitive interior monologue was interrupted by Harry plunking his glass down on the table and the scraping of his chair. He smiled at her from across the table. "Ginny, I'm so glad that even through all the shit we've had to go through recently that we are still able to stick together."

Ginny flinched at the words 'shit' and 'stick'.

"Mr. and Mrs. Potter forever, eh?"

Ginny thought she was going to be sick.

* * *

That night, after Ginny had gone to bed, Harry had crept in beside her, just as always. He usually stayed up late working on Auror things. But as Ginny felt the depression on the other side of the mattress grown deeper, she knew something was different tonight. Something in the way he smelled…

Harry's body rolled closer to hers and she felt his arm reach over her shoulders. "Ginny," he said in a husky voice. "Ginny, are you awake?" It was firewhisky she smelt. She was about to turn over to tell him that the doctor had told them alcohol was not good when she stopped herself.

Who cares?

She rolled over. "What?" she asked dead-pan.

But he didn't answer right away. Instead, as soon as she rolled over, Harry pressed his body on top of hers. "Come on, Ginny," he slurred. "Come on, we have to try again."

Ginny tried to sit up and push him off but he slammed her body back beneath his. "Harry, what the fuck are you doing?" she raised her voice.

"We have to keep trying, Ginny. The doctor said so. We have to keep trying." His breath was rank in her nose and her heart sped up with the sound that that had crept into his voice. It was one of violent desperation.

His body was pressing down on her diaphragm, making it hard for her to breathe. "Harry, you're hurting me," Ginny said in a small voice. "I can't breathe."

"Shut up then," he grunted as he undid his belt.

Taking her opportunity while he was distracted, Ginny tried to worm away from him quickly before he knew what was happening. She didn't make it too far. Catching her wrists Harry held them tight together in one hand. Ginny didn't know that his feminine hands were capable of doing something like that but the thought was soon gone from her mind as he dragged her back under him.

"Don't move, Pea," he said and then he chuckled drunkenly. "You're my Sweet Pea, you know that? Do you know why I call you that?"

Ginny shook her head, her heart thrumming in her throat and tears pricking at her eyes.

"No?" Harry asked as he wrenched off her underwear, dragging the material to her knees. "No, you really don't know? I'll tell you. It's because I love you." Ginny didn't point out that this didn't make sense instead she bit her lip.

_Is this what love is?_ She asked herself. _This is so different than the other times. Maybe _this_ is how we get pregnant._

Her confused thoughts raced around her mind as Harry wrenched her arms over to her left hip as he helped himself take his pants off.

"Ginny," he was now crooning as he stroked her lower belly. "This is the only way…"

_The only way. _Ginny echoed in her mind. It made sense. It had to make sense. It would be much too painful if it was something else.

Harry bunched up her nightgown around her waist and pulled her arms back over her head. Something wet splashed on her cheek. Ginny stopped struggling for a moment as she looked up at Harry, confused.

His face was screwed up in drunken logic but he was crying: The tears falling thick and fast onto Ginny's face. "You see Ginny?" he told her in a hoarse voice. "You see what you have done to me?"

Had she done this?

Ginny blinked away one of Harry's tears.

No, she didn't think she had.

She felt him adjust his hips and she gathered her breath. "Stop," she said in a small voice. Her brain was rushing to catch up with what was happening.

This wasn't love.

"Stop," she said again, louder.

Harry just shook his head. "I'm sorry Ginny, but this is the only way. I love you."

"Stop it Harry!"

At the moment Ginny yelled out his name, Harry thrust his manhood into her, taking what wasn't his to take.

Ginny's eyes went wide with the pain of hurt and betrayal. She bucked her hips wildly underneath Harry's but his weight held her down. She screamed her defiance but he simply ignored her yelling out over her noise over and over again that it was "the only way".

She couldn't help it. Through the pain the back of her mind took over and her bucking protest with her hips became more and more in time to Harry's thrusts. Her tears flowed freely as she realized what she was doing.

"I can't stop," she sobbed out. "You fucking bastard!" She screamed, trying to ignore the way her wall clenched around his shaft. "I hate you!"

"Shh," Harry said his eyes screwed shut as if to block out the sight of Ginny beneath him. "This is the only way. I love you."

Ginny turned her face away from him crying bitterly into the pillow. She still struggled to free her arms and torso from his grasp but her hips followed his rhythm.

She was having sex with her rapist.

Ginny felt her self begin to tear at the edges of her conscious. Something in the back of her mind was breaking and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She felt her belly grow warm with heat and she choked out a sob as the liquid flowed down and out of her. Harry sighed from somewhere above and thrust deeply into her, squirting his own heat deep inside of the Girl that was no longer Ginny.

He rolled off of her with ceremony and curled up into a tight ball at the other end of the bed. He was silent for a long time until his ragged breathing became deep with sleep.

Ginny lay frozen in her spot for sometime after that.

Her body was in two pieces: the Girl Below and Ginny on top.

She stared up at the ceiling feeling her two pieces grow steadily farther apart and she wept without sound, feeling the wet trickle of tears upon her cheeks echo the wet that was slowly dripping out from between her legs.

Ginny started to shake. The tremors rocked her body as her mind gathered up its strength. She knew what she had to do.

She forced her mind to halt the process of separation that was occurring in her self and she stood up and crossed to her bureau. Her hands clenched on the wooden frame in disgusted shame as the rest of Harry's liquid rushed out of her in a flood of damp.

She removed the shred of underwear from her ankles and shakily put on a new pair after wiping down the insides of her thighs.

She waved her wand and it began to sift through her clothes for her, magically packing the things she thought were essential.

While it did this, Ginny found herself walking towards the foot of the bed to stare at Harry.

"I always thought I'd end up with you," she said quietly, calmly. Her mind was too fried to express her true feelings.

Something nudged at her legs. It was her bag and wand. Ginny grabbed both of them and slung her bag strap across her shoulders. She stood and watched Harry breathe for a moment longer. Then her legs began to tremble.

Turning to disguise the moment from herself, Ginny wrenched open the bedroom door and walked out. She descended the stairs quietly and left the house for the cool night.

The air wrapped around her bare legs and arms but for the fist few hours she didn't notice it at all. But once midnight fully set in around her Ginny began to shiver.

Stopping to pull out pants from her bag, Ginny chided herself for being stupid. What in Merlin's name was she thinking, going out into the night without a plan?

_But, _she thought._ I do have a plan_.

She grinned crazily and apparated to Hermione's house.

* * *

"What in God's name are you doing here?" Hermione Granger yelled into Ginny's face using the muggle phrase that Ginny found so absurd.

"Nice to see you too, Hermione," Ginny said without humor. "Can I come in?"

The witch blinked at her for a moment and then said, "Sure, come on."

Ginny dragged her bag past her friend and plunked it onto the ground. "I'm sorry to barge in on you like this but I really need a place to stay."

"Sure, sure," said Hermione as she eyed her friend oddly. Ginny sat down on the couch with a sigh, like he had some great weight upon her shoulders. She could tell that Hermione was eyeing her, trying to find out what was wrong, but Ginny kept silent.

"How's Ron?" Ginny finally asked, trying to stall.

Hermione could tell but she answered anyway. "He's well; he's with Rose at the Burrow visiting. I stayed behind to work."

"Oh," Ginny said then lapsed back into silence.

The two women stayed that way for many long moments before Ginny got up the nerve to speak.

Looking up into her friend's brown eyes Ginny said in a cool voice, "I need you to teach me how to be a muggle."

* * *

**review plz!!! (even though there was no Draco)  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Another update. Few this story is hard to write. I get really snippy at anyone who interrupts me. And then I have to remember that I'm not the one who has problems but the characters do. lol**

**jk rowling owns it all  
**

* * *

A blonde two year old holding onto a toy Snitch was running through Draco's dreams. He teetered across the grass on thick sturdy legs that were still a bit bow-legged from babyhood.

Draco smiled at the child but the boy did not smile back. Instead, he pointed to something in the distance. Draco's smile slipped from his lips as he realized the boy was crying. As he neared the tiny figure, he realized that it was blood.

Blood was leaking out of his son's eyes.

Concern washed over him, but he could not bend to comfort the tiny boy. The dream tugged at him to follow the direction his son's finger was sending him in. It pointed to the mountains that had suddenly sprung up in the distance.

For some reason the feeling of urgency crept up Draco's spine as he began to run. The mountains never moved any closer but Draco's heart was racing: Pumping blood to his extremities working the muscles to their fullest potential.

Suddenly Draco neared a body. A girl. A woman.

She was lying on the grass that he hadn't noticed was there before and she was writing in pain. Blood was spurting out from between her legs and her hands were down there, trying to keep it in her body.

"Are you alright?" Draco tried to ask, but his tongue was too thick to oblige.

He blinked and when he opened his eyes again he was on top of her, forcing his way into her womanly opening without permission. Driving, seeking, feeling what he was taking with a feeling of disgusting glory.

She writhed under him, screaming for help, crying the same bloody tears his son had. Draco could feel his climax building within him. He couldn't help it. He hated what he was feeling but the pleasure washed over him anyway.

He arched his back to thrust deeper into her and his eye caught in a mirror that had appeared in front of him.

His face was masked like a Death Eater.

Draco began to scream before he woke up sweating.

Breathing hard and deep Draco was sitting up amongst his sweat soaked sheets in his bed. Naked except for boxers his torso glittered with moisture in the moonlight that streaked through his window.

It had been living in this bloody apartment building for about a month when he had first had that dream, and every night for the past six months it had plagued him.

At least on the nights when he slept.

Disturbed deeply Draco sighed, threw off the covers and crossed to the offending rectangle of bare glass. He had forgotten to draw the shade before falling asleep. Draco looked out across the city and he could tell that the sky was preparing for sunrise. The horizon had already ripened to a deep blue with light blue around the edges.

Draco wrinkled his nose at the sight. He thought everyday should be a cloudy day. The sun reminded him too much of Scorpious.

Scorpious.

Draco realized that he hadn't been able to think that name for a while, it had been too painful.

He hastily tugged down the blind before turning back to his room.

The telly was still on at a low volume showing him some horrible show called 'Footballer's Wives'. Well it was horrible but Draco still liked watching it, for some unknown reason it made him feel better.

As long as he couldn't hear himself think he'd watch anything. And if it helped him stay up at night to avoid that dream…well he'd do anything to sit in front of that square box.

Draco sat back down at the foot of his bed and turned up the volume a bit trying to ignore his sweat dampened sheets.

The screen flickered light against his skin and walls, bathing him in beautiful abandon until his eyes began to droop and he entered a semi-aware comatose state.

A woman giggled then gasped.

At first, Draco had thought that it was just coming from the telly but when a man's voice rumbled out of sync with the mouth on the screen Draco frowned, annoyed that his meditation had been interrupted.

Listening hard for a moment, Draco realized that the sound was coming from outside, down the hall. He sat up in bed, angrily throwing off the sheets. Draco thought he would punch somebody if it were those bloody kids from 709 playing in the hallway again.

Draco wrenched open his door and peered out, ready to yell at the children. He hated children. But it wasn't them. The door to apartment 713 was open and two bodies were pushed up against the doorframe snogging as if their life depended on it.

Draco stopped short and was about to close his door when something hatled him. It was their two bodies, entangled in passion that caught him. Blushing he tried to tear his eyes from the scene before him but he found that he couldn't.

The woman's neck was tilted upwards as the man nibbled on her pale skin and Draco was mesmerized.

He blinked slowly, his mouth hanging open slightly in confused longing. He could barely remember what it felt like to touch skin, let alone kiss it. The woman's red hair looked silky and warm in the dimmed lights of the hall and Draco wanted to touch that as well, to feel the strands slip through his fingers…

"Sorry babe, but I got to go," the woman spoke in a cutesy female whine.

Draco closed his mouth abruptly and was ashamed to realize that he was leaning against his doorframe as if his legs were useless, his knuckled white from supporting his weight. He stood up but stayed quiet, watching the scene.

The man she was kissing growled in protest. "Aw come on; at least stay a little longer?" But the woman just shook her head and tugged down the hem of her skin tight black dress.

"Sorry babe, but I don't think you're the one," she mumbled, loosing all the charm from her voice. Draco rubbed his eyes. Did he know that voice? He shrugged the foggy memory off.

"What?" the man asked.

Silence. Then, "Nothing." Draco heard the girl mumble as she adjusted her purse strap. "Laters!" She said cheerily, back to the girlish tone of voice. She blew the man a kiss and swept off down the hall.

Draco was so busy watching the swinging hips disappear down the hall that he didn't notice that the man had swung around to go back into his apartment and had seen him.

"All right, mate?" he asked Draco with a bit of a slur. He had a round face which he nodded down the hall after the retreating girl who never looked back. "Beautiful isn't she?"

Draco just looked at him. He hadn't thought the girl was that pretty. Her eyes were dead and shrunken and she was much to thin for his taste but he still thought, yes she was once very beautiful.

The man nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. "Oh yes right charming that one. Although," the man leaned forward and swayed a little, but he caught himself and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "A bit of a slag though if you get my drift. Put me in a right state though. You see," the man raised both of his hands to wipe his mouth. "She was _totally_ free and not one catch! Amazing." The man sagged into the frame and smiled dazedly down the hall. "Oh yes, amazing."

Draco rolled his eyes and shut his door, letting the man trail off into his own private daydreams.

Settling back into his bed a smug smile hit his face. You'd never see _him _make such a fool out of himself over a woman. The smile dropped as he thought of Astoria.

_Well at least not anymore, _he thought with a tone of finality as he tucked his hands behind his head and focused back on the bright screen, his throat clenching painfully in the back where it held sobs at bay.

* * *

This happened again the next night. A bit earlier in the morning this time, around two o'clock Draco heard the giggles of a man and woman together in the hall. Quickly Draco tried to leave his room, throwing the covers off his bed so fast that they tangled around his feet tripping him so that his shoulder slammed into the wall next to his door.

Growling, he opened the door furiously to only wish he hadn't. A different man from across the hall and the same woman from the night before were looking at him with startled faces.

It was then that Draco realized he was only wearing boxers. "Sorry," he mumbled, retreating back into his apartment.

"You take it easy now, mate," the man had said, trying not to laugh. The girl didn't restrain herself. She giggled into her lover's chest which brought his attention back to her very quickly. "Now where were we?" the man asked her in a low voice.

Draco shut his door rubbing his shoulder all the way back to his bed. Lying down he sulked up at the ceiling, his hand still holding his upper arm.

_What did it feel like?_ He wondered. _To be touched?_

Draco slowed the hand rubbing his shoulder until just the fingertips brushed over the bruised skin, tickling the little hairs and making his skin prickle.

He decided that it wasn't the same.

* * *

It was the next night that really pissed him off. He had lain awake, the telly off for once, in the dark listening, waiting for her to arrive. Then he heard it. Around midnight he heard the lift door ping and two pairs of feet stumble out into his hall.

He waited. He could hear them whisper drunkenly to each other and they tried to be quiet. His stomach clenched as he heard them move to the opposite end of the hall, probably to number 700, Draco guessed.

He waited. He counted the minutes and watched the moon's light creep through a crack in the blind slowly across his darkened room.

After two hours they came out. Draco was slower this time, cautiously avoiding the sheets and quietly opening his door a crack. Pressing his face to the opening he squinted down the hall.

_Just one more time, _he promised himself. _I just want to see her hair again._

He could barely make out the figures down the hall and he silently willed them to come closer. They didn't move until the woman told the man the same thing she had the others.

"It's time for me to go, babe," her haunting voice echoed down to Draco. "You're not the one."

Of course the man protested and watched her go longingly to the lift. She was getting closer to Draco but he knew she would stop halfway at the door that would take her down and out of the building.

Now that she was closer, Draco studied her. She was wearing the same black dress the she had worn the first night. Draco wasn't sure about last night, for he had been too shocked to notice.

She pulled the hem down on it again, like she was nervous that it was so short, like someone was going to see her wearing the dress and deem it inappropriate. She fiddled with her red hair as she waited for the lift to respond to the call and Draco could see that she only fidgeted to keep from trembling. She looked very familiar, Draco decided. He must have dreamt about her or seen her on the street somewhere.

Finally when the door to number 700 closed the woman bent down, supporting her weight on her knees with her hands as she took a deep shuddering sob.

Once and that was it. She took a breath and stood up straight again without the shaking. The lift door opened and she walked in and Draco could see her in the mirror that coated the inside of the lift that she was back to fixing her hair again.

The door closed and his vision faded.

His knees still on the ground, Draco found that he was stiff and he hadn't the energy to walk back to his bed so he crawled. He let his fingers dig into the soft carpet creating little impressions in the braided fiber that lasted for only a moment: footprints on a beach.

He reached his bed and crawled onto the mattress. Curling up in a ball he let out one sob, just like the woman had done. He realized that she had gone through all the available men on his floor and probably his building and would not be coming back.

He would never see that red hair again.

Draco stayed in that position for the rest of the day and the night that followed. He wasn't hungry or thirsty and because of that he could avoid using the bathroom. He loved that. The feeling he got from remaining in one spot for a long time.

It was the same feeling he remembered as floating underwater; suspended entirely by one element and not touching anything else, not the ground or the sky, just him and the blue ocean.

He was still floating when his door made a strange sound that evening at eleven.

His head twitched, starting to come out of his reverie when he realized that his door hadn't made a noise, it was someone knocking on it.

Draco came back into his body fully then and started unfurling himself, one joint at a time. He was stiff, very stiff. Deciding again that he couldn't walk right away, Draco crawled to the door and reached up for the knob to use as a crutch.

He heaved his weight up and at the same time he opened the door.

The red-headed woman in the black dress was standing outside his door.

"Get dressed," her glossy lips commanded him in a harsh voice laced with honey. "We're going out."

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**Review!!!!!!**

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

**oh no!!!!!! I haven't updated since the summer!!! AHHHHHHH I AM SO SORRY!**

**(the three people that read this I'm sure will be very angry)**

**Also I am bored. It's spring semester and i obviously want to fail all my classes so I will begin updating again. But I won't make any promises.**

**REVIEW even though I left you guys**

**jk rowling owns it all  
**

* * *

Draco was stunned. He was sitting at bar to one of muggle London's clubs and he had no idea how he'd gotten there. He looked down for a clue but was met only by the sight of some drink, some muggle drink that tasted…he sampled the liquid…disgusting.

"How's it taste?" the woman clinging to his right asked.

Draco sipped the drink again and suppressed a shiver. "It's…nice." How the hell was he supposed to know what to say in these situations? He had never been in one before. But he was mesmerized. "I'm sorry," he was surprised his words were coming out strung together so he stopped and started again. "I'm sorry, but I _swear_ I've seen you before." Draco leaned closer to the girl and had to hold on to the counter to not fall on her. _I guess I'm used to firewhiskey, not this muggle shit, _he thought.

The woman didn't miss a beat although Draco was sure he'd told her that same thing many times that evening. "That's because we're in each other's dreams," she said, making something up with a smile. "We're soul mates, eh?" She giggled, trying to give the appearance of flirting but even as drunk as he was Draco could see something click in the back of her eyes.

"What was that?" he asked, pointing into her eyes.

The red head just laughed and helped him put his glass up to his lips. "Just drink up, honey," she said sweetly, watching the scotch disappear down his throat for the eighth time that evening. "Just drink up and then I can give you a surprise."

Draco's nose was burning as he put his glass down. "What kind of surprise? You're really familiar…" he hiccupped. "And pretty…"

His companion smiled and whispered "Finally." She helped him up and out of the bar and together they stumbled back to Draco's apartment.

* * *

"Whasmyprize?" the tall blonde Man whispered heavily into Ginny's face.

She tried not to roll her eyes. It always happened like this. Six months and she should be used to it. She put her smile back on. "Me," she said coyly as he finally got his keys to unlock his door. She smirked at the Man's open mouth and led him inside of his own apartment, scanning the room for the bed. It was right in front of her. "Well," Ginny said to herself. "That was easier than I thought."

She turned to the Man and let the Girl Below take over. "Come here baby," the Girl purred. "Come tell me what you like." The Girl sat down on the bed and motioned to the space beside her. "Come here," the Girl said again. The Man was just staring at her, not moving.

"I swear…" he mumbled, swaying and looking pale. _Paler_, Ginny decided from the backseat of her mind.

The Girl Below decided to speed things up. "Never done this before? That's alright, let Ginger show you how."

She jumped when he yelled. "That's it! I do know you. You're Ginn-" Before the Man could finish his sentence; he rushed to this sink and vomited into the shallow basin. "Fuck, that stuff smells bloody awful," she heard him mutter into his own bile.

But Ginny was shaking. The Girl Below had retreated as soon as this Man had begun to say her old name. _How?_ She asked herself wildly. _How does he know? I've been careful, I've been quiet, I've been- _Ginny stopped. She looked up.

He was standing upright again and he was wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Bloody awful muggle drink…"

Ginny froze. Her entire body felt like it was light and dizzy, like it no longer belonged to her. All her muscles were clenched in raw fear and surprise. _That word…_ Ginny hadn't heard that word in a very long time.

She stood up abruptly; bringing the attention of someone she never thought she'd see again back to her.

"Don't go," he said. "I know you, Weasley, right? Ginny Weasley?" He staggered closer to her and she inched to the door. "I haven't seen our kind in ages." He paused, squinting. "What happened to you?"

She turned quickly and opened the door. He grabbed her wrist. "Don't go, it's me, don't you remember? It's me, Drac-"

He heard something spray into his eyes before he felt it. He let her arm go out of surprise rather than pain and then he felt it. "What is that?" he yelled. But somewhere outside of his mind he heard the door slam in his pepper-sprayed face.

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**revieeeeeeew**


	8. Chapter 8

**Whell...**

**It's been a while...**

**Sorry!**

**JK Rowling still owns the idea for Harry Potter and all...**

* * *

Ginny was shaking.

Her skinny body was wracking with tremors that had nothing to do with the cold.

The hole in the wall of the apartment she was living in gave her little shield against the outside air of the night, but tonight she welcomed it. Needed it to clear her mind.

It was impossible.

She sat down on her bed that was just a mattress on the floor and hugged her knees to her body.

It wasn't him. It couldn't be. It would be too painful if it was him.

She raked her shaking boney fingers through her hair, ignoring how some strands caught and were plucked out of her head by ragged fingernails.

Too painful to remember the world she had left behind.

She had been avoiding wizarding men for a while, only going after them in the beginning when she thought she could handle it. But when they started recognizing her she had slipped away into the muggle world completely.

How could she do that now that he saw her?

Ginny stood up and smoothed her dress. _Its fine, _she reassured herself. _Its fine, its fine, its fine._ She walked over to her tiny sink and clutched it for balance as she leaned her face close to the mirror.

Her cheap makeup had started to run and she quickly wiped it away with a tissue. She looked closer, making sure she had wiped it all away. Her eyes avoided her sallow cheeks and the dark circles under her eyes with ease. She had countless days of practice of avoiding looking at her body and she had grown quite good at it.

She avoided her jutting hip bones, she skirted around her rib cage, and she completely ignored the way her legs looked.

Ginny was very good at not looking.

But when _he _had looked at her…Seen her body…

"_What happened to you?"_ His words echoed in her mind.

Ginny turned abruptly away from the mirror and went to the escape in her bed not bothering with dinner. She wouldn't have eaten it anyway.

Crawling onto the mattress, Ginny kicked off her heels but left her dress on, trying to hide under the covers and beneath the smell of smoke and bar sweat. She was quite good at hiding too.

_All I have to do is avoid him,_ she thought to herself._ Never see him again and I will be fine._

But Ginny knew she would see him again. She had to. She hadn't had sex with him and she couldn't know if he was the one.

This drive, the single purpose she had made her entire life, was tugging at her. It had to happen. She had to sleep with him. There wasn't a man that she passed by. Her rules were simple.

One: find her soul mate by sleeping with every man she could. And two: exclude men under 20 and over 50 and the ones already in relationships.

She would find him. She nodded to herself as if she was reciting something. She would find him. And to do that, she would have to go back to that apartment that was so closely linked to her past that it scared her to the very core.

But that pain paled in comparison to the pain she felt being alone in the world.

* * *

Draco woke up the next morning feeling sticky and heavy. He could still smell the muggle alcohol on his skin and each time he got a whiff, he felt sick. He waded through the pounding of his brain to get to his memories of what had happened the night prior.

Suddenly, he sat up.

Was that Ginny _Weasley_? The ache in his head made it hard for him to think. _What the bloody hell_...Draco started, sitting up quickly before he knew he would regret the choice.

Once his brain caught up with his head Draco squinted, looking at no particular object. _She was the woman_, he thought, slowly warming his mind up for regular speed thinking. _It was her that had gone through all the single men in the complex and... And what? Slept with them? _Draco sucked in a sharp breath. _Merlin, what for?_

During his school days he had hated the girl and her family and everything they had stood for because that's what he was supposed to do. He was a Malfoy and hating people was a skill he was proficient in, but he never gave it a second thought; as if it were a class he excelled at, like potions. But with what had happened in his last two years at Hogwarts and being the head of a family, for however brief a time, Draco had quite forgotten about the Weasleys, let alone hating their guts. Simply out of sight, out of mind. He never saw the girl again and had only occasionally ran onto her brother, Ron or her husband in Diagon Alley almost two years ago.

Draco's jaw clenched when he thought about the Boy who Lived. It was a grudging respect that he now held for the man ever since the prick had been the one to rescue him in his seventh year at school. _Well_, Draco thought, _not so much saved as allowed me to live_.

Allowed to return to his normal life, or allowed to pick up the pieces and try to return to a normal life. It had been hard. Draco winced at the memories. Walking down the street was a chore, even though the glares and insults had lessened as time when on.

But he remembered celebrating his 19th birthday by getting an ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and having it shoved in his face before being beaten up by a bunch of young hot-heads.

His mother had applied a cooling spell herself to his abrasions when he had apparated home. Something she hadn't done in years. "This is strange," Draco had chuckled. "Usually I'm taking care of you." His mother had smiled slightly, as if the action was a strain and she was out of practice. "Hmm," she had muttered. Then, after a period of silence; "Happy Birthday."

Present-day Draco groaned and flopped back down in his bed. His hangover was still chugging away in his temples and the sting of memories weren't helping. It's not like he could have prevented these things from happening. He remembered sitting in the Great Hall after the battle, flanked by his parents. They had been looking around awkwardly, feeling out of place and almost like a living insult to everyone around them.

But compassion had been shown to them for a brief time, the time it took for the castle to be tidied, the wounded and the dead to be attended to. Many people bustled about completing these tasks, but many more were simply seated at the tables, shocked and exhausted, staring out into space.

It was a good hour before the looks started coming. No matter how much the Sorting Hat preached forgiveness and cooperation, and no matter what had just happened in the battle, the unconscious prejudice still held sway.

He felt his mother's dainty hand rest gently upon his arm. "Darling," she had said, and Draco remembered the way her voice had quivered with overwhelming feelings. "We should go…" She had trailed off with a quiet squeak as she saw the black haired hero walking over to them.

All three Malfoys stiffened, not missing the intensified looks that were not shot in their direction from everyone in the Great Hall. Lucius had refused to meet Harry's eyes out of shame and his mother had her face pressed into her husbands shoulder. But Draco had looked straight up into those startling green eyes.

He hadn't meant for it to be a challenge, just a silent plea for understanding between to teenage boys who had both been through too much, but Harry seemed to take it as aggressive.

"Malfoy," Harry had said, coldly, addressing only the young blonde man.

Draco had just nodded, his voice stuck in this throat as soon as he realized that Harry was hostile.

"I want you to leave, this place is not for you or your family." Harry's green eyes were cold, red around the edges and framed with dark, unhealthy circles.

Draco was startled but recovered quickly. Perhaps it would take longer for the hatred to dissipate, Draco remembered thinking. But that was a foolish hope of a young man, after all, it's not like the Malfoy's had gotten over their prejudices towards muggles.

When Draco's family had taken longer to gather themselves together to leave, Harry barked out at the trio. "Leave!" Draco remembered cringing.

Draco cringed back in the present along with the memory and clutched at his head.

The only positive thing that had come out of this hangover was that the pain in his skull and the nausea in his stomach distracted him from his depression, although he didn't know it at the moment.

The tall wizard tried to find a more comfortable position in his bed, but it was no use. He tried turning on this television only to power it off immediately when his eyes began to water at the flashing bright lights.

"Fuck," Draco enunciated quietly, enjoying the way the muggle expression rolled around in his mouth. "Fuck," he said, louder.

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**Review? Please? Even though I haven't updated in a while?**


	9. Chapter 9

**another chapter for you all!**

**thank you so much to everyone who is reading!**

**and no thanks to jk rowling who owns it all. curse you.**

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Moonlight and streetlight leaked into Ginny's dingy room through the spaces in the blinds and roused her. Night-time, she realized. Her time.

It was probably only seven o'clock, but Ginny was awake. Over the past six months, Ginny had taught her body to be nocturnal, it made avoiding the light of day, which always showed more of her body than she wanted to look at, easier. The redhead laboriously pushed herself into a sitting position.

Sitting up used to be easy for the twenty six-year-old woman, she had been a member of a professional Quidditch team and she had worked hard for her athletic shape. But now the only exercise she got was from sex and that alone, combined with the fact that she hardly ate anything, did nothing to help her strength.

With a diet consisting mainly of juice and crackers and the occasional meager salad, Ginny's protein deficiency had surpassed her fat deficiency. Her muscles had atrophied. Without muscles and fat, Ginny's legs looked like those of a scrawny child's and her skin had begun to hang loose around her thin frame.

_Thin, _Ginny thought, looking down at her legs. She clung to that word as if it were a life raft. She was thin; the word that meant attractive in the muggle and wizarding cultures alike. Flat out refusing to use the words skinny or anorexic, Ginny had successfully avoided any internal confrontation with herself that would have brought a whole mess of psychological issues to the forefront of her conscious. And she was nowhere near ready to deal with most of them.

After hauling herself up off her mattress, she walked over to her sink to grab a bar of soap and a small towel. Glancing at herself in the mirror, she set her jaw for what was to come. It had been four days and she needed a shower.

Crossing to the door, Ginny didn't even look over to the place where she had hidden her wand. At the beginning of living in her flat, she constantly caught herself staring at the loose floorboard in a wistful way, but she had made an unconscious promise to avoid magic and everything and everyone that was related to that part of her life, which included her wand. Now, as she walked past its hiding spot, Ginny didn't even flinch. It had become such an ingrained habit to ignore the tug in her heart and the wish to turn her neck to stare at the huge symbol of her past that she didn't even bother.

But as she opened her door Ginny paused and huffed gently in annoyance with her self. _Everyone, huh? _She asked herself as she closed the door behind her. _Apparently not, I can't even avoid…_ She distracted herself from thinking of his name by knocking lightly upon her landlord's door.

All thoughts of magic and personal problems fled Ginny's mind as her landlord opened the door. She took a deep breath for strength.

The 50 something landlord's greasy face broke out into a lurid grin when he saw Ginny standing on his threshold. Ginny tried not to let her face blanch.

He wasn't fat, just flabby and out of shape with the beginnings of a beer gut low on his stomach and around his waist. Despite his excess fat, the man had stick-like legs that were white, hairy and contained many red zits around his crotch and backside. The proportion of his legs to his torso gave the impression that he was top-heavy and ready to fall at any moment. Ginny always thought he was going to fall on her, but he never did.

"What the fuck do you want?" He asked, running a hand through the only attractive feature on him: his hair. It was a deep chestnut in color and full and styled astonishingly well for a man of his station. Ginny always focused completely on it when then were together. She didn't even remember his name. She didn't want to know it either.

Holding up her soap and towel, Ginny communicated her need of a shower to the man that she had done countless times since she had moved into the complex so many months ago.

The man moved aside and she followed him into his rooms; they had done this many times before.

Ginny placed her bar of soap and towel on the ground outside of the entrance to the bathroom and turned around to see him settling onto his recliner chair in front of his television set.

"You know what to do," he told her, his attention and body aimed at the telly.

When she didn't walk over immediately, he turned back to look at her. "Do you want to use the shower or not?" He asked, with a sickening smile, for he knew she wouldn't refuse the promise of hot water.

Ginny mechanically crossed over to kneel in front of him on the hard wood floor. She gently unhooked his belt and unbuttoned his pants before moving them and his boxers out of the way, exposing his flaccid manhood.

Looking up at him quickly, Ginny hadn't meant to pass him a quizzical look but nevertheless he barked down at her. "Well, that's your job!"

Ginny's cheeks colored and she took a deep breath before spitting into her hand. She chanced another glance up at the man reclined in the chair and saw that he wasn't looking at her but instead at the television which was flashing a program of donkeys mating.

"You see this," the man asked her as she wrapped her hand around his shaft and began to pump. "I recorded this for me to watch when you visit." Ginny closed her eyes for strength and she tried to ignore the squeals of the jenny as she tried to attract a mate.

The announcer on the television told his viewers that the female would squirt her scent in the faces of the jacks in order to interest them. At that fact, Ginny's landlord became aroused and his hands found Ginny's head and forced it down.

Ginny tried to ignore the sounds of the donkeys copulating as she worked on the landlord but she found she couldn't. The brays of the animals invaded her ears and tears began to prick at her eyes.

She didn't understand her emotional reaction; she hadn't been this bothered before. Perhaps it was the animal noises that made her so aware of how barbaric and horrible her situation at the moment. When she tasted the salt a little while later, she wasn't sure if it was her tears or from the man.

Wiping her mouth, Ginny sat back on her heels. "Can I use the shower now?" She asked without emotion. The man nodded, his eyes still focused on the nature show where the donkeys were continuing to mount each other and pump.

Ginny turned on the water in the shower as hot as it could go and stepped in, ignoring the pain on her skin and enjoying the feeling of knowing that the scalding liquid was burning away the dirt and grime from the past few of days. As she turned her face up to the stream she smiled, letting the boiling water hit her teeth, making her gums tingle uncomfortably as they burned along with her skin.

Showering for Ginny had become a huge undertaking and now held a certain kind of ritual to it. After four or five days, Ginny would walk to the landlord's door to kneel in front of him and produce a rhythm with her hands and mouth. As a result she could stand underneath the hot stream for as long as she wanted.

The reward for her trials was so refreshing and satisfying that Ginny had begun to subconsciously associate the boiling water breaking upon her skin with feelings of purification and forgiveness for her digressions. Deep in her subconscious was the hope that the unknown magic that stopped her from finding her soul mate would somehow be appeased by her almost self-punishing cleansing routine.

As ill logical as her thought process was, Ginny was not in a totally correct state of mind when it came to her position in the world. This irrational belief occasionally satisfied the little part of her that still questioned what she was doing with her life.

Lathering herself fully and cleaning every part of herself carefully, Ginny exalted in her showering and took full advantage of this simple pleasure. Eventually, the woman stepped out of the shower and toweled herself off in the steamy bathroom.

Wiping off a bit of the mirror, Ginny caught herself smiling widely in the reflection and stared at it, smile slowly slipping off her face.

Wrapping the towel around her and tucking it into itself, Ginny leaned forward to get a closer look. She tried to smile again, to regain the feeling of the cleansing shower, but it didn't reach her eyes. Out of the steam and out of the water, reality had begun to set in again and Ginny was reminded of what she had yet to do.

She had to go see the tall blonde man in a few hours and she knew it would take a certain amount of strength that she wasn't sure she had.

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**sorry about the intensity of this chapter. but i feel as if it was needed**

**reviewwww (please**


	10. Chapter 10

**yayyyyyy thank you everyone who revieweddddd**

**also, i will be honest...thanks to anyone who read my story!**

**jk rowling owns harry potter blah blah blah**

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Draco was still in the same position he had been in the whole day; sprawled out on his bed, half under the covers, legs and arms thrown at random with sheets twisted around his limbs as a result of his efforts in trying to get comfortable. He had managed to doze around one o'clock and but had woken up at four, the worst part of every one of his days, and had stayed awake since.

He was irritable and frustrated with his lack of sleep, but his mind was too depressed to even worry about those feelings. Irritability and frustration were emotions that Draco had not felt in a long time, so long in fact, that it was hard for him now to recognize what they were, let alone deal with those feelings.

He just lay there, trying to see if he could slip back into sleep, but he just felt like crying.

In fact, what Draco didn't know was that crying would probably make him feel better, but recently he could hardly even make his eyes water even if he prodded at the corneas. Draco had given up crying six months ago when he had decided it just took too much energy.

The blonde man's reasoning was that he knew everyone else in his apartment building was prone to crying at any given moment, so they were doing the crying for him. But it was more than that. His deep melancholia was exhausting. As it coursed through his body and mind, it physically rode him hard, and he could feel it, at the end of each day, a pressing weight becoming heavier on his chest by the hour, squeezing him, compressing him, and holding him down.

Holding him together as well. Like a pressurized container holding water, Draco was a prisoner of his sadness but it held him in one spot, it stopped him from leaking out. But as Draco held in his tears and his past, as he rolled them all into a tight ball that he tucked in firmly behind his heart, he filled his container to the brim, and beyond, which tested how well the walls were made.

Draco didn't know how close he was to breaking.

As the man stared off into space for another good three hours, his thoughts didn't wander far from the ceiling he was looking at. The weight Draco felt on his heart was everywhere, even on his eyes and it took a lot of effort to move them around to look at things. He much preferred gazing at one spot for a long time. Like the ceiling.

_Or the television, _Draco thought as he rolled his eyes laboriously down so he could see the black box. He could feel the cold hardware of the remote near his left hand but as he gripped it with his hand, he found it to be too heavy to lift. And even before that, he had lost interest in even watching the telly halfway through picking up the remote.

_Fuck it, _Draco told himself, rationalizing the fact that he couldn't pick up the remote with the fact that he hadn't really wanted to in the first place. He changed his mind a lot lately, especially when it gave him the excuse not to do something hard.

He had never been a lazy boy, his mother and father both taught him the value of a hard day's work, but it was work of a different sort. Striving ahead in school was taught to Draco consciously by both his parents who excelled in the Ministry and in social circles with little trouble and who both pushed him to achieve his fullest potential when it came to his classes and Quidditch. But unconsciously, his parents had taught him something else entirely: manipulation and lying.

Draco was a clever wizard, more so than his outward appearance showed while he was at school, especially when his insecurities took over as a young adolescent at the head of a group of rowdy Slytherin boys and especially when Harry Potter was around.

The Boy Who Lived represented a threat to Draco; a threat against his parents and against what had been taught to his housemates by their parents. To deal with this added pressure, Draco again turned to what his parents had shown him at home. Whether they had wanted their only child to emulate their manipulative ways against his peers at school was unknown to Draco. But with the absence of approval from his parents while he was at Hogwarts, the vigorous approval of his friends worked just as well to solidify the behavior.

Draco had only learned what he had been taught. It was a result of the environment in which he grew up that came from the environment in which his parents had grown up. The young Malfoy heir was nothing more than a product of nurture. That is, he was, until his sixth year.

Draco had been forced to do something no one should have to do unwillingly at the threat of pain to his beloved mother and the disgrace of his father. Draco was helpless. But with his failure to kill Dumbledore in his sixth year combined with the eye-opening year of loneliness and peer ostracism in his final year at school, Draco grew up.

With no one to rely on Draco found himself drawn to a world of self-evaluation and reflection upon his years at Hogwarts and he found himself riddled with regret and self-pity. And with no one to turn to for affirmation and comfort of his feelings, he hoped to get any sort of confirmation from Harry Potter in the Great Hall those many years ago.

But the black haired boy wonder had shut him and his family down and turned them away from reassurance. Draco felt for sure he would have started to permanently harden if he hadn't met Astoria.

_Astoria_. Draco felt his throat clench and rubbed it, slowly and arduously. It too, like his son's, had been a while since he thought her name.

His beautiful wife that had come into his life like a light he needed to revolve around. She smiled at him whenever he needed and she filled in certain holes in his life that he missed. She helped him clean out the Manor, she helped him take care of his father, and then his mother before they each passed away of old age that had come upon them both too soon.

Astoria Greengrass was a beautiful witch. Coming from a respectable family, Narcissa had instantly approved of her son's choice not only for that reason but because she believe that Astoria would be good for him.

She was right. Draco's wife kept him balanced. For all that Draco was and appeared to be, he was very much a child at heart. While Draco's actual childhood was not cut short in any way, his innocence was. So he made up for it everyday in little ways. He was impulsive and charming in the way a little boy is, all the while maintaining the appropriate Malfoy manners around company and the public eye.

But when he was with Astoria, Draco never held anything back. And they enjoyed each other's presence for their two years of dating and then two years of marriage. It was a perfect life, Draco remembered thinking.

She had never made him laugh, though. Nor did he feel as if she would hold him as he cried, or plan exciting trips that would never happen late into the night with just the light of a wand and an out of date map. Astoria wasn't one for dreaming or dallying near flowers or thinking about silly adventures just for them.

But she had given him a son.

Draco felt his throat clench tighter.

Those early days had been bliss, pure paradise.

Draco was working for the Ministry then, a lowly position but respectable all the same. At least they had let him work there. They even gave him health insurance and the weekends and holidays off just like any other employee. The paycheck had been nice, too.

Ever since the final decent of his family's position happened when he was seventeen, Draco had noticed a slight dwindling of funds, but nothing drastic. Astoria and Draco found that they still could easily afford the Manor as well as pay off the hospital and in-home care bills for his parents in a timely fashion.

Draco knew then that he was no longer as rich as he once was. With his father wasting much of their money on bribes and various errands for the Dark Lord, their money was substantial enough for their lifestyle but Draco was used to more, and was pleased in a satisfied sort of way whenever a payment was deposited into their vault at Gringotts.

He was also satisfied coming home to a family. He never thought he would be the one to enjoy that type of life but every time his son came running to him on his stubby baby legs at the end of a long workday and he carried him into the kitchen to help Astoria finish making the dinner, Draco felt an odd sort of pleasure.

The new Malfoy family's golden age ended in a swift and abrupt halt when Scorpious fell sick.

For all the magic that Draco had learned and read about in school, he could never and would never understand how there could be such an illness that could claim his son. And for all the trials Draco had been through and maturing he had done, Draco was not at all prepared for this loss, which followed closely on the heels of his mother's death and ended in Astoria leaving him.

For nothing can damage a marriage worse than losing a child. Astoria's personality wasn't one of sticking around to figure it out either. She had been raised by her family to be a doting wife, one a pure-blood wizarding family would be proud of, as so she was taught the ways of a dutiful wife as a proper witch.

She could take care of anyone that had to possibility of an end point, either in getting better or finally being laid to rest as a result of a long full life, as in that of Draco's parents. But when her son fell sick and she knew no hope at all, she began to unravel. And without the promise of her husband recovering from his depression, Astoria dissapperated to find solace and answers elsewhere.

Draco tried not to think back to the hospital almost three years ago, but he couldn't help it.

There had been a witch sitting next to him in the waiting room of the corporate offices of head of hospital policies who couldn't stop rocking back and forth in what appeared to be extreme sorrow. Draco's stomach was already in knots for fear of his son's life and the witch's movements next to him weren't helping at all.

He finally was called and ushered into the office of an unusually small wizard whom Draco originally thought to be a dwarf of some sort but realized eventually that he was just a very slender man.

"Please sit, Mr. Malfoy," the wizard said, all manners, but the pleasantries were lost on Draco who got straight to the point.

"Tell me once and for all, plainly too, why you are choosing to refuse my claim?" Draco had taken out his wand and was wringing it nervously, causing it to glow slightly.

The man behind the desk sat down and sighed, as if his decision weight mightily upon his conscious. "I'm sorry Mr. Malfoy," he began. "But your policy that you signed with the Ministry does not cover experimental treatments at all. You would have to pay out of pocket I'm afraid."

Draco had been stunned. "Out of pocket?" He had been trying to keep his voice below a yell and as a result, his voice cracked under the strain. "And how much would that be?"

"10,000,000 galleons, Mr. Malfoy. But you have to be pre-approved to commit to that payment and I took the liberty of checking your bank vault at Gringotts and I am sorry but the funds just aren't there. You will not be approved for even getting on a loan list at this point."

His ears were ringing at this point.

"There is just nothing we can do," the man continued to say.

Draco looked up and met the eyes of this bureaucrat. "Nothing you can do?" He asked, voice raspy. "My child is downstairs, dying and he could be saved with this treatment and you won't give it to me. I have a house, I could sell my house…" Draco had trailed off when he saw the man shaking his head.

"Like I said before, Mr. Malfoy, the treatment is experimental so we don't even know if it will work. There is not a 100 percent guarantee that your son will recover so the Ministry's policy is clear. Without proof that this cause is worthwhile, they will not give you approval for payment."

"NOT WORTHWHILE!" Draco had roared, startling the thing man. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean!"

The slender wizard looked alarmed. "Please, Mr. Malfoy, control yourself."

Draco stood up, his tall and powerful frame towering over the seated imbicille in front of him. "You tell the _Ministry _that 100 percent chance is shit." He spat the words. "Even a one percent chance should be enough for them to save the life of a little boy. So who the fuck do I have to talk to around here to get some answers?"

Draco had been escorted out of the office shortly thereafter by security and had not been allowed back in for any more meetings. Astoria was devastated. She had always believed Draco's influence would work and she had clung to it with a lasting hope that was ferocious. Now that it was gone, she was lost.

Draco had tried to gain a meeting with the head hospital administrator for St. Mungo's and then the minister himself, but he was barred at every turn because he was a Malfoy and a poor Malfoy at that. Furthermore, Draco had convinced himself it was also the result of his outburst and was deeply ashamed and disappointed in himself for not maintaining a better decorum, one that had been taught to him from childhood.

But there was nothing they could do. No one would give them a loan because they were Malfoys and they didn't have good enough credit, they had no friends that were able to front the money and with the Ministry's red tape blocking them at every chance, Draco and Astoria floundered in their distress.

Finally they turned back to their son in a quiet resolve of wanting to spend the last few days they had together with him. They traveled with him as far as his health would allow which consisted of the seashore and the last trek up to see the sunset. Draco would always regret not having more time with him.

The end of Scorpious' life rushed up to greet the two parents with the last morning of their son being in agonizing pain and no one doing a thing about it. When Draco could ignore the screams no longer, he finally ripped off the sheets and scooped the child up in his arms and held him there for fourteen hours as he died.

Astoria was huddled in the corner with her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth in extreme sorrow that Draco turned from. It reminded him too much of the witch he had seen in the policy office and it almost felt like that stranger had been a kind of foreshadowing that Draco had missed.

The last few hours were the worst. As his son's body began its final shut down, the boy stopped screaming but he looked up at his father with eyes that were a vibrant blue that Draco had hoped for but filled with an immense pain that Draco had never hoped to see.

They were almost pleading with him and he announced the fact to his useless wife.

"Astoria, I swear, he needs it. It's almost like he's asking me to do it." Draco had whispered.

The woman had moaned. "No, no, Draco don't," her voice turned into a desperate whine at the end. "Don't do it."

Draco hadn't realized that he had begun to cry until a tear splashed upon his son's forehead. Hastily wiping it off, Draco found himself determined. "I have to, for his sake." He reached for his wand.

Astoria stood up at that moment. "For his sake, or yours, Draco. He's in pain but he doesn't understand it, much less how to silently ask for release."

"He's my son!" Draco roared. "I know what he wants."

His wife was tugging on his arm, hanging on him. "He wants you to stay strong, he wants you to be a father and hold him."

Draco jerked away. "No, he doesn't. I can't bear to see him in any more pain."

"Exactly!" Astoria yelled desperately. "You can't. Not him, it's you, these are your feelings, you're projecting them onto our son. You're doing this to yourself. I know you Draco, if you do this, you'll never forgive yourself!"

Draco ignored his wife and raised his wand higher. "Yes I will," he whispered crazily. "I will forgive myself because this is the right thing to do."

"NO!" Astoria shrieked. "Please! Draco, don't, that's our son, that's your son! Draco, DON'T!" Her cries became wordless screams as Draco brought his wand down.

"Avada Kedavra," Draco said simply.

He didn't bother closing his eyes against the flash of green light, but he continued to stare into the eyes of his son that immediately went dark with lack of life.

All he could hear then were the screams of Astoria calling him a murder and a coward.

Present-day Draco turned over on his side and vomited over his mattress and onto the floor.

His stomach still heaving, he heard a clinking noise that wasn't familiar to the blonde man at all. Draco wanted to get up immediately and see who was on the other side of his door, but it took even more of his energy just to lie there, heaving and trying to catch his breath from his violent memories.

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**wow, so that was long!**

**s'more please? and i mean reviews not porridge or girl scout cookies**


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